Guitarist Pete Townsend Attempted Suicide

Posted: Sep 28 2012

LONDON – Guitarist and songwriter of the legendary rock band ‘The Who’, Pete Townsend, said he wanted to commit suicide when he was accused of being a pedophile.

The equally legendary musician was arrested in 2003 in connection with a website promoting child porn. His house was checked as part of the accusation but no evidence of child porn was found in Townsend’s home or on his computer.

Pete Townsend, guitarist and songwriter of The Who. Photo Credit: BRUNO

However, Townsend did confess to police that in 1999 he paid $US15 to click on a button at a website that read ‘Click here for child porn’.

Townsend explained that this was part of an investigation over child abuse for ‘Double O’; a beneficiary of The Who.

The musician also said that he immediately thereafter canceled the payment but the media storm that followed about what he had done, drove him to almost commit suicide.

In his new book ‘Who Am I’, Townsend writes: “If I would have had a gun at that time I would have shot myself in the head to escape the lynching party”.

During an interview with The Times, Townsend declared: “I think I was exhausted. Police gave me 30 minutes to decide whether or not I wanted to file a lawsuit. My lawyers were as stunned as I was. Everyone thought I would be left alone. They would have taken me to pieces had I gone in front of a judge”.

The remark reflects Townsend’s decision not to go to a judge at the time of his arrest and demand his name should be cleared.

Townsend said that he always wanted to support sexually abused individuals because of an incident to took place at his Grandma Denny’s house, whom he lived with.

According to Townsend, his grandma, who was of strong moral character, forbid him to ever look his bedroom door. She had a man that very much resembled Adolf Hitler wearing the same small mustache and his short hair parted sideways.

Townsend claims his grandma ordered him to call this man ‘uncle’ and that he sat on that man’s lap many times.

“I am not saying I was abused because it would actually explain my complicated character, but I am not going to deny what happened to me there,” Townsend said.

Townsend wrote about his experiences at his grandma’s house in the extremely popular rock opera ‘Tommy’.

Roger Daltrey, the only other surviving The Who member, always supported Townsend and believed in his innocents, just like his wife Rachel Fuller, and his 3 kids.